Ho hum. The last whizzo 1/10/08 Vista update did for my only Vista PC - a Toshiba portable. It totally destroyed itself beyond repair.
The update finished and upon reboot it generated a genuine BSOD sysnurdle error message screen which persisted for all of 200ms before the machine spontaneously switched itself off with a loud click (not enough time to read it and barely enough time even to recognise what it was). Blink and you would have missed it entirely.
After that nothing worked - the repair functions basic and advanced diagnostics could see the previous known good configurations but were unable to finalise them even given several hours trying. It got stuck in some kind of verification loop. The first serious attempt to boot after that failed whilst it was checking modules with about 3300/68990 displayed on the screen when it went click and switched off. Then it got even worse and stuck at 667/68990 but now it did not instantly switch off so it was possible to write down the error message for all the good that does:
!! 0xc0000034 !! 667/68990 (qwave.dll)
The display appeared to be refreshing this text at glacial speed.
Hardware testing with Vista not loaded shows nothing wrong.
I finally lost patience this morning and trashed the whole thing back into working with the master install disk. Thank heavens for backups.
Their lame slogan "Working just got more fun" really grated.
Don't use Vista! I've got a new quad core machine and used my old copy of XP. Why would *anyone* want Vista?
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Dirk
http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff
Oh! I agree. Unfortunately some of my customers insist on it :(
Many corporates I know are staying with XP.
I have absolutely no idea. I posted this as a cautionary tale. I suspect that there is some diabolical interaction between the Vista drivers and Toshiba portables far too clever for their own good power saving hardware features.
I use Vista on one sacrificial new machine for testing purpose only. Even with light use Vista dies with monotonous regularity (twice fatally in 6 months from new).
Get a LiveCD Linux such as Puppy-4 and a USB external hard disk that is bigger than the disk in the machine. You can use "gparted" to make a bit for bit copy of the hard disk in the Vista machine.
When you have a bit for bit copy made, you and write it back in every time the Vista mungs its self. If you buy a really big disk, you can make copies of various situations of Vista. This way you can test with and without some of the service packs etc.
If you are making software that runs on a windows machine, you should have an extra step in the install. It is worth making a file such as install-conditions.txt that lists the DLLs etc that are installed at the time of install. This can help in trouble shooting.
qWAVE is the "Quality Windows Audio/Video Experience" :-)
formatting link
Maybe your graphics or sound driver of your laptop have bugs? My Vista installation works great: no crashes since I changed an old serial USB adapter by another model, which caused some blue screens.
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Frank Buss, fb@frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de
Wasn't Vista supposed to cure the "blue screen on every trivial fault" problem?
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Dirk
http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff
Could have been worse. The EOI opcode (Execute Operator Immediate) is usually considered to be nastier.
I did once include an HCF instruction in a machine-level simulator I wrote (IBM 360 emulation - our school's Advanced Assembly Language class ended up using it in preference to the real 360/30 on campus). An HCF would cause the simulator to print a diagnostic ("It's now
11:17 AM, and time for the processor to explode.") and abend.
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Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
For the most part, I try to turn off anything and everything that auto- updates. (Even those that ask my permission first.) Whether that be the operating system, or any programs that periodically surf the net for updates.
I may miss out on the latest and greatest, but I find my downtime to be SIGNIFICANTLY reduced. FWIW.
There is no way that it wasn't something *you* did. Also, if it is "beyond repair", then send it to me.
Turn the memory setting back down,and any other tweaks you have in place. Windows' memory testing at boot is likely seeing reflections. Turn the BIOS system speed(s) down and work back up AFTER you are booted.
Or, you could put a Knoppix disc in, and burn off some archival data, and then re-format the entire drive and re-load the OS(es) of choice, and applications, etc. Broken beyond repair? I find that hard to believe. Baloney. Put a new drive in. Nicer, faster drives are everywhere now, dirt cheap.
I think you have problems with your systems, because *you* pull things as if you know what is going on (as in tweak), and when it breaks, you blame Bill. Ever think it could be you?
That reminds me, how is Skybuck's PC project coming?
--
Paul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!!
Interesting. The exact same opinion is found here:
| | FOCUS Magazine Interview with Bill Gates: | Microsoft Code Has No Bugs (that Microsoft cares about) | | In this interview, Big Bill gets distracted and reveals his contempt for | you, his loyal customer. | | In an interview for German weekly magazine FOCUS (nr.43, October 23,1995, | pages 206-212), Microsoft`s Mr. Bill Gates has made some statements about | software quality of MS products. [See executive summary, below.] After | lengthy inquiries about how PCs should and could be used (including some | angry comments on some questions which Mr. Gates evidently did not like), | the interviewer comes to storage requirements of MS products; it ends | with the following dispute: | | FOCUS: | Every new release of a software which has less bugs than the older one | is also more complex and has more features... | | Gates: | No, only if that is what'll sell! | | FOCUS: | But... | | Gates: | Only if that is what'll sell! We've never done a piece of software | unless we thought it would sell. That's why everything we do in software | ... it's really amazing: We do it because we think that's what customers | want. That's why we do what we do. | | FOCUS: | But on the other hand - you would say: Okay, folks, if you don't like | these new features, stay with the old version, and keep the bugs? | | Gates: | No! We have lots and lots of competitors. The new version - it's not | there to fix bugs. That's not the reason we come up with a new version. | | FOCUS: | But there are bugs an any version which people would really like to have | fixed. | | Gates: | No! There are no significant bugs in our released software that any | significant number of users want fixed. | | FOCUS: | Oh, my God. I always get mad at my computer if MS Word swallows the page | numbers of a document which I printed a couple of times with page | numbers. If I complain to anybody they say "Well, upgrade from version | 5.11 to 6.0". | | Gates: | No! If you really think there's a bug you should report a bug. Maybe | you're not using it properly. Have you ever considered that? | | FOCUS: | Yeah, I did... | | Gates: | It turns out Luddites don't know how to use software properly, so you | should look into that. -- The reason we come up with new versions is not | to fix bugs. It's absolutely not. It's the stupidest reason to buy a new | version I ever heard. When we do a new version we put in lots of new | things that people are asking for. And so, in no sense, is stability a | reason to move to a new version. It's never a reason. | | FOCUS: | How come I keep being told by computer vendors "Well, we know about this | bug, wait till the next version is there, it'll be fixed"? I hear this | all the time. How come? If you're telling me there are no significant | bugs in software and there is no reason to do a new version? | | Gates: | No. I'm saying: We don't do a new version to fix bugs. We don't. Not | enough people would buy it. You can take a hundred people using Microsoft | Word. Call them up and say "Would you buy a new version because of bugs?" | You won't get a single person to say they'd buy a new version because of | bugs. We'd never be able to sell a release on that basis. | | FOCUS: | Probably you have other contacts to your software developers. But if | Mister Anybody, like me, calls up a store or a support line and says, | "Hey listen, there's a bug" ... 90 percent of the time I get the answer | "Oh, well, yeah, that's not too bad, wait to the next version and it'll | be fixed". That's how the system works. | | Gates: | Guess how much we spend on phone calls every year. | | FOCUS: | Hm, a couple of million dollars? | | Gates: | 500 million dollars a year. We take every one of these phone calls and | classify them. That's the input we use to do the next version. So it's | like the worlds biggest feedback loop. People call in - we decide what to | do on it. Do you want to know what percentage of those phonecalls relates | to bugs in the software? Less than one percent. | | FOCUS: | So people call in to say "Hey listen, I would love to have this and that | feature"? | | Gates: | Actually, that's about five percent. Most of them call to get advice on | how to do a certain thing with the software. That's the primary thing. We | could have you sit and listen to these phone calls. There are millions | and millions of them. It really isn't statistically significant. Sit in | and listen to Win 95 calls, sit in and listen to Word calls, and wait, | just wait for weeks and weeks for someone to call in and say "Oh, I found | a bug in this thing". ... | | FOCUS: | So where does this common feeling of frustration come from that unites | all the PC users? Everybody experiences it every day that these things | simply don't work like they should. | | Gates: | Because it's cool. It's like, "Yeah, been there done that - oh, yeah, I | know that bug." - I can understand that phenomenon sociologically, not | technically. | | | Executive Summary: | | So... | | * Bug reports are statistically, therefore actually, unimportant; | | * If you want a bug fixed, you are (by definition) in the minority; | | * Microsoft doesn't care about bugs because bug fixes are not a | significant source of revenue; | | * If you think you found a bug, it really only means you're incompetent; | | * Anyway, people only complain about bugs to show how cool they are, not | because bugs cause any real problems. | | Straight from the horse's mouth. | |
For some things it is very hard to prevent the blue screen of death because of the structure of windows. Things like the screen saver and the RS232 code are right at the core of the kernel so that they can control 100% of the CPU time when needed.
If you still think you need an RS-232 port, you are living in the stone age. Short of setting up a JTAG programming tool, or other such peripheral control device, there is no need for such archaic devices on one's system. That is why they can be 100% disabled in the BIOS setup for ANY x86 machine I ever saw. Where have you been, idiot?
It CAN be turned off, and DOES NOT use up ANY CPU cycles if set up properly.
Now, idiot, tell us something even more retarded than that stupid remark was.
Also... the screen saver does NOT utilize 100% of the CPU's time slices. Can you really be that stupid?
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